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Orr to state lawmakers: 'We need your money'

Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr was in Lansing for the third straight week Tuesday, this time to testify before the new House committee debating sending financial aid to the city. He came bearing a blunt message.

“We need your money,” Orr told the lawmakers.

Orr spoke before the Detroit’s Recovery and Michigan’s Future Committee, and reviewed the city’s plan of adjustment, which he said puts Detroit on an ambitious schedule that could result in the city exiting bankruptcy this summer or fall.

For the past two weeks, Orr has been in Lansing meeting privately with lawmakers to update them on the city’s move through bankruptcy and answer questions about the state’s involvement.

On Tuesday, the committee heard publicly from Orr and Rep. John Walsh, R-Livonia, the committee chair, who gave an overview of legislation unveiled last week, House Bills 5566-5575 and an 11th bill that has yet to be officially introduced. The bills would send the city $194.8 million from the state’s Rainy Day Fund, as well as provide 20-year oversight of financial operations.

Rep. Thomas Stallworth, D-Detroit, a member of the committee, said after the hearing he didn’t think there were too many strings attached to the bills but that the “magnitude of the strings are maybe a little bit hard to swallow.”

He said the oversight envisioned in the bill would include a financial review committee; a city oversight committee, which would approve the appointment of a chief financial officer for the city; and continuing overview by the bankruptcy court.

“I don’t have an issue with oversight given the world we live in today,” Stallworth said. “But I do think if we are going to go down that path, we have to do it in an effective and an efficient way.”

The committee will meet again on Wednesday, where Walsh said sponsors of the specific bills will delve into the details of each piece of legislation. And it will meet on Thursday, when Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is expected to testify, according to his chief of staff, Lisa Howze.

Orr said the financial contribution from the state is essential, because without it the money pledged by the Detroit Institute of Arts and other foundations would not come about.

If that were to occur and the settlement could not be reached, city assets, including art at the DIA, could be sold in a fire sale, and the proceeds of those sales would be divvied up and sent to the city’s creditors rather than sent to shore up the city’s pension funds.

During his testimony, Orr said he has already received five objections to the proposed package of bills that union officials and others feel do not live up to the agreements made in the plan of adjustment. He did not specify what all of those objections were, and Walsh said he has also not seen those objections.

It is likely more objections will be brought to his attention in the coming days, Orr said, and that he wants to keep the bills close to the intentions and promises he has made with the various parties to the bankruptcy.

After the hearing, Business Leaders for Michigan President and CEO Doug Rothwell made public a letter he sent to Gov. Rick Snyder, members of the committee and legislative leaders Tuesday morning, indicating the group’s support for the state’s financial involvement, as well as establishing financial oversight.

The letter also urges the Legislature to “minimize the imposition of regulations or provisions that might jeopardize the financial restructuring plan’s approval.”

Kelly Chesney, vice president of marketing and communications for the group, said Rothwell was not referencing any specific regulations or provisions in his letter.